Sacking of Who drummer Starkey shines light on session players who sprinkle their magic on recordings

Irish Independent

2 days ago

In the entire history of popular music, I am not sure if there has ever been so much public recrimination about who was responsible for dropping a couple of beats from a song. Essentially, after 30 years in the Who's drum seat, Starkey (who is Ringo Starr's son) was fired following a charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall in May.
The offending incident was a sloppy intro to 1971 ballad The Song Is Over, during which Daltrey missed a cue, struggled to sing in key and grumbled 'all I've got is drums going boom-boom-boom!' while pointing accusingly at Starkey.
Daltrey's latest interview seems to contain a grudging acceptance that it wasn't actually Starkey's mistake. The band use an electronic drum kit, with mixes controlled by a sound engineer and sent to in-ear monitors.
'We had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn't pitch,' explained Daltrey. 'I was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at him because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn't. That's all that happened.'
Well, not quite all. The Who also terminated their long-serving drummer's employment, then re-employed him (on condition he publicly apologise), then sacked him again. What seems to have upset Daltrey is that Starkey declined to go quietly, arguing in his defence onstage, and subsequently telling journalists 'I got it right and Roger got it wrong'.
Starkey claimed that he turned down the Oasis tour (he drummed for them from 2004-2008) due to his now-cancelled commitments with the Who. He even dragged his famous dad in, claiming Ringo told him 'I've never liked the way that little man runs the band'.
Daltrey described Starkey's comments as 'a character assassination', 'incredibly upsetting', and 'crippling to me'. Who knew the lung-busting, mic-swinging rocker was so sensitive?
Starkey was treated shabbily, effectively sacked because the singer made a mistake and couldn't admit it. But Daltrey's crucial and unarguable point was that 'Pete [Townshend] and I retain the right to be the Who. Everyone else is a session player.'
When people pay to see the Who, the band's job is to supply what their rock star employers need to deliver their best performances. Starkey lost Daltrey's confidence and lost the gig as a consequence. But I'm not sure anyone really cares who is in the drum seat, as long as they sound as much as possible like the Who's original drummer, the late, great Keith Moon.
The Who are currently touring with a new drummer, Scott Devours, their fourth since Moon died in 1978. In the lead up to his live debut last week, Devours (who has played with Don Felder, The Sixties Show and Daltrey's solo band) admitted to 'a strange contradiction of emotions' knowing that 'the greatest moment of my professional career' was 'someone else's loss'. Such is the lot of guns for hire. One player's loss is another player's opportunity.
It led me to think about the unsung musicians whose playing has been integral to the soundtrack of our times, the untold number of virtuosos who are lucky to even get their names in the small print. You could argue that it was session players who really formed the sound of the Sixties and Seventies.
Motown house band the Funk Brothers played on more than 100 number one singles, Phil Spector's recording ensemble the Wrecking Crew infused their talents on hundreds more (including the Beach Boys' all-time great 1965 album Pet Sounds) whilst Los Angeles collective the Section can be heard on so many classic 1970s soft rock albums that they became known in the industry as the Mellow Mafia.
A few have emerged from session ranks to become solo stars, including Glen Campbell, Leon Russell and Dr John (all from the Wrecking Crew). Led Zeppelin and Toto were formed by session musicians, with Steve Lukather, the Toto guitarist, credited on more than 1,500 recordings (the American prog rock band are all over Michael Jackson's Thriller album).
Some have been so ubiquitous that they achieved a kind of half fame, such as bassist Carol Kaye, who played on more than 10,000 sessions spanning Frank Sinatra to Stevie Wonder, or pianist Nicky Hopkins who featured on more than 250 albums including classics by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who and the Kinks.
British bassist Herbie Flowers is said to have played on 500 hits including Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, for which he concocted a bassline made up of two separate parts. Flowers once said that 'in those days, the recording rate for a three-hour session was £12 but if you overdubbed another instrument, you got double the money. Not that I did it for that reason'.
He was paid £24 for possibly the most famous bassline in pop history.
Session musicians don't generally get royalties. They get a flat rate up front and that's that. It might seem unjust when something they create goes on to become an integral part of a classic song, but I suspect most wouldn't have it any other way.
'You've got to remember most recordings don't make any money for anyone,' as a musician friend once put it to me. 'I get paid in full when I walk out the studio door.'
I am sure Zak Starkey will be fine
The age of the session player is far from over. Even in these days of drum machines and programmed keyboards, producers still call on gifted players to sprinkle magic on recordings, while the proliferation of solo artists means there's plenty of work on the live circuit.
How many of the million plus ticket-holders for the Oasis comeback tour know that their latest session drummer, Joey Waronker, has played with REM, Nelly Furtado, Neil Diamond, Norah Jones, Paul McCartney and Roger Waters? All they care about is that he keeps the beat behind the Gallagher brothers, for which he is being handsomely rewarded.
And I am sure Zak Starkey will be fine. He's a talented drummer, with impressive names on his CV. Have sticks, will travel.